Sure enough, the surface demon was there among the sparse grass and sunbaked dirt that existed this far out from the city center. It howled soundlessly at the sun, clearly not happy to have been forced back. Hissing, it turned to Al and myself, and I dropped my second sight to become invisible to it. “Holy crap on Velveeta toast,” I whispered, shaken as I imagined this happening everywhere as the sun slowly crept across the surface of the world.

“Just so,” Al said, a hint of what might be sympathy in his voice. Shaking, I felt my way around the table to settle in the second wire chair. There were going to be lots of unhappy vampires. I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to get to muck out the church with Jenks and Ivy today. This was bad. If the vampires had been ticked at me before, they’d be doubly so now, blaming me for the elven failure since Landon had set me up to take it.

“That is what happens when you try to tweak a well-crafted curse,” Al said, flipping his hat. “It’s always better to start from scratch than mend flaws created by a modification.”

“What about the vampires who found their souls last night?” I asked.

“They are soulless again,” he said, attention distant as he flipped his hat to land squarely on his head. “The long undead will be most unhappy that their headlong rush to their demise has been interrupted. I predict that by noon, the elves will be spelling to bring their souls back again. They want the old undead gone, and this is the easiest way to do it.” He set his hat on the table between us. “But you already knew that,” he said, voice low. “Killing them with a kindness. Perhaps elves are more like us than they wish to admit ...”

I rubbed my forehead. The sun was barely up and I was tired already. I needed to call Ivy. “This isn’t my problem.”

“Of course not.” Al stood and brushed at his coat, watching the way the sun hit the fibers. “There’s a way to save them, the undead I mean.”

I looked up, hesitating when I realized some of the threads in his suit sparkled. “How?”

He twirled his hat, running it down his arm, across his back, and down to his free hand where he caught it and jauntily placed it on his head. “If you break the path between the two worlds—”

“I’m not going to destroy the ever-after. It will be the end of all magic,” I interrupted.

“Why not?” He eyed me speculatively. “You’ve seen Cincinnati without her undead. You can end it all right here. Break the lines and no one goes in or out. You might learn to like living without magic. It may be the only way to survive us coming home.”